The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
time, lived an aged man, by name Artelio, one whose fortunate
experience in desperate cures had made famous. Him, by the powerful
command of his queen, and the humble tears of a still-mistrusting
lover, she conjures to employ the uttermost of his skill in preserving
him in whom she lived. Some time there was ere his vital spirits,
almost now proved strangers to their wonted mansion, would accept the
tie of hospitality; but when the hand of art had taught them courtesy,
and that each sense, though faintly, did exercise his charge,
Amphialus, returning to himself, from that sweet ignorance of cares
{636} wherein he lived, began to question, in what estate the castle
was against the besiegers? thinking he had always been there; when
Helen entered the room with a countenance where beauty appeared
through the clouds of care and fear of his danger: Her, the double and
deeply wounded patient (bearing still about him the inward picture of
Philoclea, whom long I have heard, in vain he loved) thought to be the
same saint, the remembrance of whom returned, together with his
wandering soul, from which it was inseparable. Now, therefore, with a
languishing look (the true herald of what he suffered) ‘Lady,’ said
he, ‘though the welcome harbinger of a near-following death hath
provided this body (while it was mine, alway devoted to your service)
as a lodging for his master an ever-certain guest, yet when I pass to
the Elysian plains (if any memory there remain of this world of
comfort you now vouchsafe, heaven knows! your faithful, though
unfortunate servant) I shall never cease to pay the eternal tribute of
thanks to well-deserving death, who, with his presence brings the
happiness in life denied me.’
“The Queen with a pensive silence, sorrowing she stood to act the
counterfeit of her rival, and still desirous to enjoy the sweet speech
of her revived Amphialus, was like a passenger, whom the loud command
of the rough winds had forced to wander through the unevenness of the
deep-furrowed seas, now in sight of land, equally distracted between
the desire to leave his unnatural habitation, where each wave seems to
be the proud messenger of destruction, and fear to approach it, being
jealous of his hard entertainment on the rocky shore: thus did she
continue (fixed in a doubtful imagination) loth to interrupt his
pleasing speech, and more than grieved he meant not her whom he spoke
to, until Amphialus (strengthening his newly recovered senses with the
conceited presence of Philoclea) found his error, and then, with a
look on his mistaken object (which he could not make disdainful,
because his happy thoughts had once adored it for Philoclea) he
suddenly fell into a deadly trance, whereat Helen (feelingly suffering
in his danger) ran to him, and bedewing his even then lovely face with
the loving oblation of her many tears, she together poured forth the
most passionate plaints that love could invent, or grief utter; so as
a while, this accident overthrowing the fabric of her half-built
comfort with the suddenness of so unlooked-for an assault, constrained
her (with bemoaning his case) to forget the care of his safety; but
being withdrawn by her servants, the indisposition of her body, caused
her a while to entertain in bed the fever of her affectionate sorrow.
“In the meantime, Amphialus, by the skilful care of Artelio, was again
brought to enjoy that, whose loss he would account his {637} chiefest
happiness; and faintly withdrawing the cover that obscured his weak
sight, and settling his look upon Artelio, ‘Father,’ said he, ‘if you
felt the inward agonies of my tormented soul, as you see the desperate
state of my low-brought body, I assure myself you would not be so
inhuman, there to employ your endeavours, where, when they have
wrought their effect, they serve only to confirm the memory of
fore-passed calamity, with the growing apprehension of future
misfortune. But since my destinies have so set down, that the whole
course of my life should be inevitably disastrous, I must think my
tragedy is not yet acted; though what worse than hath befallen me
cannot be imagined, or what may be kept in store (more than I have
passed), far exceeds my apprehension, though not my expectation.’
“Here he began to run over his unfortunate love to Philoclea, the
killing of Parthenia, his overthrow in the encounter with the black
knight; inserting many more disgraces, which the most envious of his
glory, would not have cast as aspersions on his well-known fame. Thus,
with the thought that fate (whose working he could not limit) had
reserved him for more mischief, he suffered his wounds to be cured;
and soon after, walking one evening, as his manner was, in the garden,
he chose a time, as he thought unespied by any, to convey himself
through a back-door, and there finding his horse (which his page had
brought by his appointment) he rode away, whither he knew not, and not
much cared, so he might leave her, whose affection deserved a more
courteous farewell. But alas! when she heard of his going, what tongue
is able to express her sorrow, in whom the equally tormenting passions
of grief and despair were lifted to their uttermost height?
“Two days, since the departure of Amphialus, posted away, striving in
vain to overtake their irrecoverable fellows, and now the third was
come, to be a prologue to the following tragedy: when Helen (slacking
the violent course of her incessant plaints) gave occasion to her
servants to be less mistrustful of her actions, thinking that time
began to wear away her sorrows. But she (as by the event was gathered)
using this as a policy to rid herself of the cumber of careful
attendance, when (now her truce, in show, with sorrow, and the
restraint of her plaints had wrought the effect she desired) taking
her trusty servant Mylama with her, and leaving a letter with Lada
(whom, besides Mylama, she only trusted with this secret) which, upon
the first knowledge of her flight, should be given to Drenus the chief
of her council; wherein she excused her secret stealing away, by a vow
passed to Apollo, in such manner to go a pilgrimage to Delphos; she
put herself on her journey, having an army of passions for her convoy,
led by love, {638} and waited on by desire, in hope of what she knew
was hopeless; yet often checking her despairing foresight with such
unlikely possibilities as affection (upon these occasions) is wont to
supply.
“Many days she had not wandered (changing places, to renew her
companions in sorrow) when coming into a pleasant valley, where of
each side, many trees (in the green-leaved mantle of their summer
livery) did apparel two neighbour mountains, where some sunburnt
sapless pines, by the advantage of the ground (like little-deserving,
in themselves, birth-only ennobled men) overtopped the straight
upraised cedar, the stock of self-begun honour. Through this flowery
plain ran a many-headed crystal current that did indent the earth as
it smoothly glided by, to make the obligation of friendship between
them more firm; and where, it fame-like, increased by travel, there
(as it was the natural) so, it seemed to have been the politic body of
the state of springs, such was the constant care of the fountain
magistrates, and such the well-agreeing union of the watery commons.
Here she stayed (invited by solitariness, the best repose for wearied
sorrow) yet giving no respite to her mind, she spoke nothing but
Amphialus, or of Amphialus. ‘O Amphialus!’ did she say, and to this
invocation the flattering nymph (that always seconds what is spoken)
did join the like of her own; and Helen delighted to hear the sound of
so sweet a name beaten back upon her, for a time sealed up her lips,
listening (with attentive silence) what echo would have further said.
But she (who of all the powers of a reasonable soul, only had a memory
and a tongue only serviceable for that use) together gave over to
reflect her borrowed language, expecting (with like stillness) her
further speech. But Helen, not able longer to restrain the overflow of
her panting heart, began to cry out, ‘Unkind Amphialus!’ This also did
the echo repeat. But she hearing by the rebound of the words,
Amphialus accused. ‘Discourteous nymph,’ said she, ‘and how is
Amphialus unkind? Can the harmony of such excellence admit so foul a
fault to bear a part with his virtues? Yet, woe is me! he is unkind.
Could his hard heart else suffer this love of his (which I only name
because it is the only part worth naming in me) thus long unregarded?
Could not my crown (crowned in being a foot-stool to Amphialus) have
purchased some respect? Alas! no: how could unhappy Helen expect the
Fates reserved so great a blessing in store for her?’
“She had not long debated the reasons of her misfortune, when Rinatus
(the only brother to Timotheus, but younger by many years) chanced to
pass that way. A man on whom fame had bestowed, and deservingly, the
name of valiant; yet of disposition so mischievously cruel, and
ambitiously proud, that where his deeds might well have claimed so
great an honour, there his {639} conditions (as well weighed) brought
a reproachful burden to the balance of his reputation. He (his father
dying young, and unwilling to dismember his estate, and unable
otherwise to satisfy the hopes of his son’s ambition) hearing of the
wars of Laconia, went thither; where soon he purchased the opinion of
a man resolute to undertake, and fortunate to execute what he had
undertaken: and serving under Eborbas (chief commander for the king)
because of the sympathy of humours between them (whereby nature did
insinuate for Rinatus, and taught him flattery without dissimulation)
he grew great in his favour. Soon after this, Eborbas in a conflict
between him and the Helots being mortally wounded, yet in death,
careful of the welfare of his country, recommended this Rinatus
(partly for his good liking of him, but principally for his experience
in wars, and well-seconded judgment) to the king, who, though with
some opposition (the country-men repining at his, a stranger’s
advancement) after trusty Eborbas’s death, preferred him to the same
place. His discharge of which, outwent so far the envy of the jealous
noblemen, that well might their king and they, in the death of the
valiant Eborbas, deplore the loss of a private man, but must confess
that this watchful care and undaunted well-ordered courage, did
survive in this their general.
“In this esteem he had scarce lived a year, when, hearing of his
brother and nephew’s death, together with his undoubted right to the
large territory which his brother in his life-time had enjoyed, he,
notwithstanding, continued in the charge to which he was lately
advanced: framing in his conceit his new-acquired greatness but as a
step to climb the sovereignty of Laconia: which being elective, he
thought the easier to be compassed, having by his bounteous affability
gained the hearts of the soldiers, and being already possessed of the
chief forts (the best strength of the country) wherein he had placed
such who had their devotions linked to his will, because they owed him
the benefit of their creation. But finding the accomplishment of these
practices to depend upon the death of the king, which, his youth
promised was unlikely soon to happen, and fearful to draw on the
discovery of his practices by seeking any secret means to make him
away, whom the watchful eye of dutiful observance did warrant secure
from any traitorous plots, he solicits the King to dispense with his
presence, who (seeing the ground of his journey to be the just cause
of his long-deferred revenge for Timotheus his brother, and Philoxenus
his nephew’s death, now a peace was lately concluded with the Helots,